Five Ways
by phineyj
Summary: What does House dream about? Warning: This is quite smutty and contains some strong language mild spoilers for Humpty Dumpty.


Five Ways

"…_why does everybody think you and I had sex? Think there could be something to it? I don't know."_ Humpty Dumpty

There are five ways you never fucked Lisa Cuddy.

------------

**1981**

You see her for the first time across a smoky college bar; a small girl with a mass of dark hair and keen, intelligent eyes. And really, really incredible breasts, which her dark red top is struggling to keep in check. She watches you watching her. You buy her a drink; she has rum and coke; you have beer. Her friends retreat to a tactful distance. She makes you laugh. She is sharp and witty. She is not in awe of you like the other freshmen.

She tells you her name – Lisa, that she is a med student (you guessed that; you recognized one of the TAs she was drinking with); then, out of nowhere she says, "and I'm going to graduate first in my class." This entertains you no end and you say, "That's a bit ambitious when you've been here, what, three weeks?" She looks defiantly back at you and says, "Want to put money on it?"

Later, you go back to her single bedroom and you fuck her from behind, on top of the dark red plaid blanket you imagine her grandmother gave her. Her tits feel as good as they look; you have one in each hand, your thumbs flicking the nipples as you slide in and out of her. Freddie Mercury leers at you from the poster thumb-tacked behind her bed. The walls in the residences are thin and you wonder if the girl next door is listening from behind the fiberboard partition. Lisa holds tightly onto the headboard and shouts your name as she comes.

This does not happen, and you do not walk home in the damp grey light of early morning Ann Arbor, congratulating yourself on another successful conquest and humming "We Are the Champions".

------------

**1988**

You are not at Michigan for any special reason; you just felt the urge to get out of Baltimore this weekend. You plan to use the library and the running track; maybe have a few drinks in the bar. You check the graduation lists posted outside the Furstenberg Center and you see a name you recognize. Lisa Cuddy has come second in her class. "Ouch," you think. You came first in yours, obviously. Being a legend is a lot of work.

You run into the girl herself in the library café, where she is going through a pile of hospital brochures, efficiently highlighting sections in green fluorescent pen. A Styrofoam cup of black coffee has gone cold by her side. You pick up the Johns Hopkins brochure, flick through it and chuck it back on the bottom of the pile.

"Guess you wouldn't recommend I go there?" she says, looking up and giving you a knowing look.

"They don't appreciate a good thing when they have one," you reply, sitting down.

"You owe me fifty bucks, Lisa," you tell her.

You are expecting her to have forgotten your bet, but she smiles at you in a crooked way, reaches into the pocket of her jeans and counts out five ten dollar bills, which she passes to you. Her small hand lingers in yours for slightly longer than necessary; you notice her neatly manicured nails.

That night, you go together to a graduation party at one of the frat houses, where the inhabitants are watching Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure on video, through a thick haze of weed. You take Lisa upstairs and fuck her in the first empty bedroom you find, crushed up against the door, her legs around your waist; you have one hand on her right hip, the other tangled in her hair and this time she kisses you, long and deep.

This does not happen and you do not drive back to Baltimore along the deserted freeway at four in the morning, the taste of her still on your lips.

------------

**1995**

You are playing tennis with your friend Pete at his club in uptown Princeton, when you see her walking around the edge of the court towards you. She looks great in a skimpy pink and white tennis dress; the gear bag she has slung over her left shoulder is causing the dress to ride up a bit. You don't think she has a sports bra on; you salute her bravery. Unfortunately, while you are eyeing her up, you miss your shot completely, which makes her laugh. Pete yells at you, "Get with the program, Greg!"

You challenge her to a game after Pete leaves. She plays very well; she has more strength than you would have thought, and her style is sneaky. She likes to lob the ball to the baseline, and when you hit it back, drop it so it just clears the net and you have to run as fast as you can to return it. You win – just – so you make it best of three and you're only leading by the end because she can't return your fast serves.

Tennis turns into post-match coffee and neither of you have plans that evening, so you take her to a piano bar downtown. You are talking shop and you remember to congratulate her on her new post. You are expecting her expression of triumph as she tells you, "Second youngest ever, first woman," but not the flash of sadness which flickers across her face. This, you have to know more about.

Back at her apartment, you are surprised by the lack of personality it evokes. It smells of paint and new carpets, and there's not so much as a photo or memento to be seen. She notices you looking around.

"I've only been in two weeks," she explains. "They put me up at a hotel for the first month."

She's standing at the window; you think she's going to close the drapes, but instead she just stares out at the growing dusk of the summer evening. You walk over to her.

"Lisa. What happened?" you ask. You can see for a second she's planning to say, "I don't know what you mean," and then she thinks better of it.

"Did you ever do something really bad, but for all the right reasons?" she asks, still looking out at the street.

You don't even have to think about that one.

"No; I'm all about the right thing for the wrong reasons, every time."

You move so you're standing behind her and put your arms around her. She stiffens, but you have a feeling she's not going to tell you anything if you are looking her in the eye. You wait. A minute passes, then another. A young couple goes past on the sidewalk outside, laughing loudly.

"It's not a very interesting story," she says, finally. "I was dating this guy; got pregnant – accidentally; I can see now he was looking for an excuse to dump me anyway. I was offered the job here…" Her voice trails off.

"You had a termination," you offer.

"Yeah." She lapses back into silence.

"Does anyone know?" you ask.

Finally, she turns to face you.

"You do, now," she replies.

You don't know what to say. You want to tell her you're the wrong person to come to for sympathy and understanding, but you can't quite get the words out.

So you kiss her instead, because the moment calls for something, and that's all you can think of, and after a second's hesitation, she kisses you back. And in a little while, when you've got your head between her thighs, and she's coming, hard, against your tongue, you think it was the right thing to do.

Later, you pretend to be asleep, and she locks herself in her pretty pink bathroom and cries and cries.

This does not happen, and you do not find out the address of her former boyfriend; wait for him to return from work; tell him, "Lisa says hello," and punch him in the face. A pleasing amount of blood sprays over the highly polished bodywork of his silver sports car.

"I think you broke my nose," he shrieks. It comes out muffled. "I'm sure I did," you reply, "Trust me, I'm a doctor."

------------

**1996**

You suspect Cuddy is on a mission to try to cheer you up. You're just not sure if she's doing it to assuage her own guilt, or god forbid, is acting under instructions from Stacy. You haven't spoken to your ex since she moved out three months ago. You don't answer the phone very often anyway, but when she kept leaving messages, "just to see how you are," you had your number changed and de-listed and that seems to have done the trick.

First, Cuddy introduced you to Wilson, with the weak excuse that you should meet at least one of the people you'll be working with at PPTH. You were prepared to dislike the man on sight, but you didn't. He drops round once or twice a week; you both sink a few beers – which he brings – and you watch the game. He doesn't talk a lot, which is fine with you.

Lately, Cuddy keeps finding excuses to make you go places. You nearly always refuse – why help with her guilty conscience - but today she calls and says, out of the blue, "House? Do you own a tux?"

You started calling each other by last names when you had the surgery; it made the doctor-patient relationship you suddenly found yourselves in, a touch less awkward.

You ponder her question. You do, in fact, own a tux, but it would probably be rash to admit it.

"Why do you want to know?" you ask, at length.

"Because I've got Met tickets tomorrow night. Good ones."

You say nothing.

"House?" There's a rustle of paper on the other end of the line. "It's _Bohème_. I know you like Puccini."

It's true, dammit. Who knew she was so knowledgeable about your CD collection?

"It has Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna…"

"You had me at Angela…" you say, reluctantly.

"So you'll come?" Cuddy sounds very pleased.

You grunt your assent.

"Good, Mr Hatzihrysidis will be so pleased," she says.

"There's always a sting in the tail, with you, isn't there?" you comment.

"You want this job, right?" she says, sounding cross now.

"Yeah," you reply, reluctantly.

"Well, without his donation, there will be no new Department of Diagnostics, so I guess an evening of kissing ass won't kill you," she says, and without leaving space for you to object, adds, "I'll pick you up at five," and hangs up.

------

You are actually enjoying yourself, although you are trying hard not to show it. You haven't been to the Met for years and you have certainly never sat in the Center Parterre before.

Cuddy is looking her best in a midnight blue silk dress which clings in all the right places and leaves a splendid amount of décolletage; her hair is down around her shoulders and she is wearing more make-up than normal; something you weren't sure was even possible. Your tuxedo pants are a bit looser on you than they should be, despite the fact you bought this outfit when you were a grad student; but it was nothing a few judicious minutes with a stapler couldn't fix before you left.

Gheorghiu and Alagna are amazing, as you knew they would be, and when they get to their first big love duet, it gets you right in the gut, as it always does.

Mr Hatzihrysidis and his cronies are just about tolerable, although you have to take action against the one who keeps trying to put his hand on Cuddy's knee during the first half of the opera. As you all rise to your feet for the intermission, you 'accidentally' put your cane on the toe of his patent leather shoes.

"How clumsy of me!" you exclaim, as he winces.

The second half passes by without any more hand-on-knee incidents. You have to cast a wry glance at Cuddy at the part when Marcello and Musetta are shouting abuse at each other. She rolls her eyes at you; yup, she sees the similarity too. Mimi's death scene is very affecting and well done; although you can't help thinking, as you always do: why are you idiots letting her cough mycobacterium tuberculosis all over you; which kind of spoils it a bit.

Later, Cuddy fucks you in your bed, still wearing her blue silk dress, as you have asked. It hurts – everything hurts these days - but you enjoy the feeling of the fabric whispering over your body and the contrast with her wet, slick heat. She is on top, which is just about the only practical way for you do it right now; but you think to yourself that it's where she's used to being, anyway.

This does not happen and you do not spend the next day humming "O soave fanciulla" under your breath, while sorting your opera CDs into alphabetical order.

------------

**2006**

"You'll never be happy," you say to her. It's true. But misery loves company, and you meant those words you said to her in her office earlier on; she is a good boss, and a good friend too; not that you told her that last part, but you think she knows.

You spend the night in her ridiculous homage-to-nineteenth-century France-style bed, making fun of the flowery covers and teasing her about her lax standards of bathroom cleaning. There's no rush, this evening, and you look down at her as you slide slowly in and out of her.

When the soft light of the summer dawn breaks through the translucent yellow drapes, you are already awake; the pain in your leg has seen to that. You switch her alarm clock off and hold her a little closer while she sleeps.

This does not happen and you do not drive into work, late, in separate cars and carefully avoid being alone together.

------------

There are five ways you never fucked Lisa Cuddy.

But that doesn't mean you can't dream.

FIN


End file.
